Floating thermometer, will it take room temperature?

[dmbnpj]

I'm curious what the temperature is in the room that I ferment in. I think the floating thermometer is all I have. Will that work?

 

[BigB]

Yep... just leave it lay on the counter or on a table at the fermenting height for a few minutes, it will adjust to the room temperature

 

[dmbnpj]

OK great, well it happened to already be in place where I ferment and I am getting a reading of 72 degrees. From what I read, that is a little to warm to ferment in. I am brewing an Oktoberfest tomorrow and upon reading it is saying to ferment around 60 degrees. How can I accomplish this?

 

[azscoob]

You can put the fermenter in a cooler full of cold water up to the level of the wort, then just add frozen water bottles to the cooler to maintain the correct ferm temp, you swap out fresh frozen bottles for the thawed ones and refreeze them. also putting a shirt over the fermenter to wick water up to the top of the carboy works great as well, put a small fan pointing at the wet shirt and you have a decent evaporative cooler going.

 

[dmbnpj]

Will putting the carboy in a fridge be too cold?

 

[dmbnpj]

You can put the fermenter in a cooler full of cold water up to the level of the wort, then just add frozen water bottles to the cooler to maintain the correct ferm temp, you swap out fresh frozen bottles for the thawed ones and refreeze them. also putting a shirt over the fermenter to wick water up to the top of the carboy works great as well, put a small fan pointing at the wet shirt and you have a decent evaporative cooler going.

So using this method, will I have to change out frozen water bottles for 3 weeks during complete primary fermentation?

 

[BigB]

So using this method, will I have to change out frozen water bottles for 3 weeks during complete primary fermentation?

Just replace the water bottles for 10 days. After that you shouldn't get any off flavors because the yeast have done the bulk of their work.

 

[SquirrelMaster]

do you fill the water up to the top of the wort line? if it's that high is there any chance for contamination? should i use pre-boiled water?

 

[mlg5039]

Fill up whatever you may using as a swamp cooler so that as much of the wort is submerged as possible, but your fermenter is not floating around and/or the water cannot get into the fermentor. This will work fine.